We all woke up early and got to the train station by 9am. There are trains leaving for Brugge every 30 mins or so, so we did not need to worry about trying to find one to get there. Tickets to Brugge are €13 round trip on the weekends which is a steal! We arrived in Brugge around 1030am and made our way to the centre of town on cobblestoned streets lined with small houses. The village (I can't really call it a city), is considered at UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is considered a more medieval-looking Venice. I was definitely glad we chose to check it out because we only really needed one day in Bruxelles.
In Brugge, the locals speak Flemish because it is located in West Flanders, a northern province of Belgium. Flemish is similar to Dutch, the language spoken in the Netherlands. Fortunately, almosteveryone there speaks English. I am so used to speaking french in France that I didn't even use english until I realized that a lot of people did not know french! I have to admit that it did feel good to use my english and speak with others who didn't mind speaking in my native tongue (I try not to speak in english in France because I don't want to offend the locals).
Once again, the main attractions of the day involved food and eating. We first went to a bakery to get some pastries since we had not eaten breakfast before leaving Bruxelles. Then we walked to the main square, called Markt, where we saw the Belfry, a bell tower. After seeing the tower, we walked around some side streets, off of the main square. We noticed that there was a chocolate museum nearby, so we quickly made our way there. Belgium is famous for its chocolates so we knew this was something we couldn't pass up.
Inside the chocolate museum, called "Choco-story", were 4 stories, each filled with information about the history of chocolate, dating back to the Incas, Aztecs, Mayans, and Olmecs, of ancient Latin America. There were lots of artifacts and videos. Normally, it might be boring to me to just be constantly reading information about the invention of chocolate, but this museum made it fun and interesting. I just kept wanting to read more. One of my favorite sections of the museum was at the end, when we got to see a chocolate making demonstration. A woman spoke to us from a test kitchen and showed us how she made chocolates filled with a
hazelnut cream (hazelnuts are VERY popular in Europe apparently). After she was through with her lecture, we all received a piece of freshly made chocolate as we exited the test kitchen.
Afterward, we searched for a place to have lunch--yes, we were still hungry despite eating a handful of chocolates. I noticed an Irish pub on a street near the museum and suggested we try it. The food was delicious! I had an Irish breakfast: eggs, bacon, sausage, baked tomato, and toast, along with some authentic irish tea. Midway through our lunch we noticed a crowd of people moving into the bar area near us. Apparently there was a rugby match on television that everyone wanted to watch. It reminded me of going to a bar/restaurant at home and everyone coming in to watch the Eagles play!
By the time we were finished lunch it was almost 4pm. We decided to head back to the train station to go back to Bruxelles. We were all very tired and desperately needed a nap before we went to dinner. After napping, we headed out to find a restaurant that served mussels, a specialty of Belgium that my friend Sam desperately wanted to try before we went back to Paris. We were successful in finding a restaurant that served us mussels, fries, bread, and a beer or wine for only €12! The mussels were out of this world. We were quite sleepy after dinner so we headed back to the hostel and slept very well.
The next morning we checked out and went over to the chocolate store once more. We also had our last waffle in Belgium--this time I had strawberries with powdered sugar, yum! Libby needed to get to the train station to catch a bus to the airport in Charleroi, which was an hour away from the city. We walked towards Gare Midi and stumbled upon a Muslim open air market, which caught the attention of Sam. After saying a sad and teary goodbye to Libby, Sam and I walked back to the streets near Grand Place, where I knew I could find some souvenir shops. After buying some souvenirs, I saw an escargot vendor down the street. I really wanted to try some but I was a little nervous to buy them from some guy on the street. There were lots of locals eating them though so I figured it was safe. Sam and I split a container of them, 5 for each of us was surely enough. They were awesome! The only issue we had was that there was a small snail sculpture looking right at us as we ate the escargot, which made us feel a bit weird. As if escargot, waffles, and chocolates were not enough, we went to the chocolate shop again and I got my friend in Paris some chocolates.
Godiva happened to be across the street from the chocolate shop, so we stopped in and had some delicious hot chocolate (mine was dark hot chocolate!). Since we had basically eaten all there was to be eaten in Bruxelles, we decided to head to the train station, hoping to exchange our tickets for an earlier train.
At Gare Midi, the Thalys customer service (a term I use lightly, as there is not much "customer service" in Europe) told us we had to call a number to change our tickets. The number did not work so we planned to take the train we had tickets for. When the train finally arrived it was missing cars 1-11. My seat was in car 7 and Sam's was in car 5. The conductor said that they were going to connect the trains so we would have to wait a bit. Our train pulled away and another one came, so we figured it was ours. We got on the train and after 10 minutes Sam called me to say that it was not our train. I immediately got off, fearing the train would pull away at any second and I would be stuck going God knows where!
When I got off I saw Sam and we started laughing in the middle of the station. We didn't know what to do so we just waited around, hoping that there would be some sort of announcement. An announcement did come and we got on the correct train. I figured that we would be leaving shortly so I got comfortable and began to eat the piece of pizza I had purchased at the station (it was from Sbarro's, I had to get it!) I felt my phone vibrate, checked my messages, and read a text from Sam saying that there was smoke in her car and she, with everyone else in the car, had evacuated the train. As I read the text, an announcement was made by the conductor, telling us that there was smoke in one of the cars and that the train was being cancelled. It was said in french first, but I understood that whatever it was, this was not good because the Frenchman next to me was cursing a lot.
Once again I got off the train, saw my friend, and this time began hysterically laughing. What were we going to do? We talked to some other Americans who told us to wait for an announcement.
Nothing was ever announced so we went down to the customer service desk and were told we could take the next train to Paris. We got on the train and realized that we didn't have seats. The train was basically full of both the passengers from the cancelled train and those who had seats on this one. It was packed to say the least. Thank goodness the train trip was only 1 hr, 22mins. We stood in the narrow cavity between two cars, where the bathrooms are located, with 8-10 others. Sam and I could not keep from laughing, so at least we made the best of it. When we finally got back to Gare du Nord in Paris, we said goodbye and went home. I went to bed shortly after I got home, exhausted from such a fun weekend.
Belgium is a very beautiful country and I am so glad I got to see it. Until the next time! Au revoir!
-MEP
No comments:
Post a Comment